Documentation sets, or docsets, consist of collections of HTML files. Dash uses these docsets to store the docs you need. This section describes the various features Dash has to help you acquire and manange docsets.

You can manage the docsets you have installed from within Preferences > Docsets. You can drag and drop docsets to change the order in which results appear. If you're looking for more advanced ways of managing docsets and easier switching between them, see the sections below about Search Profiles and Docset Keywords.

You can set up collections of docsets and easily switch between them using search profiles. For example, let's say you do both macOS and Web development, you could set up a "macOS" search profile which automatically gets activated when Xcode launches and a "Web" search profile which automatically gets activated when Coda launches.

Search profiles persist between Dash launches and searches. If you explicitly do not need persistence, use Docset Keywords.

You can find the search profile settings by clicking on the loupe icon of the main search field:

Trigger Types:

Search Keywords

Search keywords are typed inside of Dash's main search field and activate a profile. In the screenshot above, whenever the user types "web:" in the search field, the Web search profile is activated. Search keywords can also be used with the dash:// URL scheme, which makes it very easy to integrate them into plugins and extensions. For more details, see the dash:// custom URL scheme section.

App Activation

App Activation triggers activate a search profile whenever a given app becomes active. In the example in the screenshot above, whenever Coda becomes active, it also activates the "Web" search profile.

Global Keyboard Shortcut

Whenever you press a combination of keys in any app, the profile gets activated and Dash is shown.

Docset keywords are a very easy way to search a specific docset, regardless if it's enabled or not. Each docset has a default keyword which can be edited in Preferences > Docsets. Keywords are typed inside of the main search field.

For example, PHP's default keyword is "php:". Typing "php:printf" would search the PHP docset for "printf". Note: this assumes you have the PHP docset installed.

Docset keywords can also be used with the dash:// URL scheme, which makes it very easy to integrate them into plugins and extensions. For more details, see the dash:// custom URL scheme section.

You can assign the same keyword to more than one docset, and Dash will search them all. However, you might want to consider using Search Profiles instead which provide more flexibility for activating collections of docsets.

Docsets which support the "Table of Contents" feature show a filterable list of entries inside Dash's table of contents which is located at the bottom left of the Dash window (when shown). You can easily navigate this table using ALT+Down/Up Arrow.

Integration plugins for various 3rd party apps, as well as generic integration methods (e.g. AppleScript or Shell/Terminal scripts) can be found in Preferences > Integration.

All the integration plugins use the dash:// URL scheme behind the scenes, so it might be worth reading the help section for the dash:// custom URL scheme to gain understanding of search keywords and how to limit a plugin to search only a specific docset.

The global search shortcut is an easy way to activate Dash in a similar style as the Spotlight shortcut. You can assign a search shortcut in Preferences > General and then use that hotkey in any app when you want to bring up Dash. You can also assign a shortcut to search using the selected text.

You can assign more global search shortcuts using Search Profile activation triggers. Search Profiles can also automatically switch and enable different collections of docsets.

While viewing a documentation page or snippet, you can press CMD+F to initiate an in-page search.

However, please note that in-page search occurs in the same search field as the regular search. In a nutshell, anything that comes after a whitespace is searched in-page.

This is what the main search field looks like while searching for stringWithFormatinside the NSString documentation page:

Due to the "anything that comes after a whitespace is searched in-page" functionality, you might run into problems while trying to search for something that actually contains a whitespace (e.g. a Guide). To search entries that contain whitespaces, omit the whitespace. For example, if you'd like to find the String Programming Guide, you can search for stringprogramming or stringguide or anything like that as long as you omit the whitespace.

You can search snippets by typing in the main search field. However, it might be hard to find the snippet you want if you have a lot of docsets enabled. To avoid this, you can create a snippets only Search Profile. For more information about search profiles, see the Search Profiles help section.

There are 2 things that could prevent snippet expansion from working and in both cases Dash should have warned you about it:

1. Support for assistive devices is turned off. This needs to be turned on for snippet expansion to work. You can turn this on in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility. If it was turned off, restart Dash after turning it on.

2. You have an app running that enables Secure Input but forgets to turn it off, you need to identify which app is causing this. Usually, web browsers or an extension inside web browsers is the culprit. To find where the problem is, quit the apps you have running one by one and try expanding after each one. If expansion starts working after you quit an app, that was the app that turned on Secure Input and forgot to turn it off.